Marissa Mayer could soon have more money to spend for Yahoo acquisitions once Alibaba goes public.

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer may have a spring in her step this morning. Yahoo's stock is higher following the news that Alibaba, the Chinese leader in e-commerce, was preparing to file for an initial public offering in the United States.

Yahoo owns a 24% stake in Alibaba. The stock has been volatile for the past few days due to speculation about a possible IPO filing from Alibaba.

Alibaba has been compared to the "Amazon", "eBay" and "PayPal" of China. Analysts estimate Alibaba could be worth about $130 billion, and the company could raise more than $16 billion in the IPO. That could make Yahoo's investment potentially worth more than $30 billion.

So Mayer must be feeling pretty good. Even her critics, who say that the only reason Yahoo's (YHOO) shares have performed so well since she became CEO is because it owns a large chunk of Alibaba, may back off now that Yahoo may be closer to cashing in on its investment.

However, some analysts still aren't convinced that the Alibaba news is that good for Yahoo. Colin Gillis, an analyst at BGC Partners, said that Yahoo may sell a little less than half its Alibaba stake after the IPO. He thinks that money could be used for acquisitions. But some shareholders though are hoping the cash could be set aside for a stock buyback or special one-time dividend payment.

It's also not clear just how well Alibaba will do once it starts trading. While it has been likened to a rocket, its revenue growth has slowed sequentially from 61% in the second quarter of 2013 to 51% in the third quarter.

And regardless of how much Alibaba is worth and how much cash it brings to Yahoo, Mayer still has to prove to investors that she can turn around the company's core business. In the fourth quarter, Yahoo's revenues were down 6% as it continues to struggle in the online advertising world.

So Mayer has to show Wall Street that she can use some of the Alibaba windfall to make the company more competitive against the likes of Google (GOOG) and Facebook (FB).

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Paul R. La Monica. Other than Time Warner, the parent of CNNMoney, Abbott Laboratories and AbbVie, La Monica does not own positions in any individual stocks.

What do many of the best performing stocks of this year have in common? Some fresh blood in the executive suite. The faster the CEO merry-go-round turns, the better!

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Paul R. La Monica. Other than Time Warner, the parent of CNNMoney, and Abbott Laboratories, La Monica does not own positions in any individual stocks.

At one point this year, investors were assuming that the market for mobile devices and advertising began and ended with just two companies: Apple (AAPL) and Google (GOOG). They were the Home Depot and Lowe's of MORE

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Paul R. La Monica. Other than Time Warner, the parent of CNNMoney, and Abbott Laboratories, La Monica does not own positions in any individual stocks.

On this Election Day, let's play a fun little game. If Yahoo (YHOO) CEOs were U.S. presidents, most of them would be unsuccessful one-term (or less) inhabitants of the Oval Office.

The activist investor that helped usher in the Marissa Mayer-era at Yahoo (YHOO) has a new target: Murphy Oil (MUR).

It's not a household name like Yahoo, but Daniel Loeb, the founder of hedge fund Third Point, called the oil and gas conglomerate an undervalued stock. In his third quarter letter to investors, Loeb outlined a case where the stock could pop if management chose to sell certain assets and spin MORE

Shares of Yahoo (YHOO) were down Friday after the company's new CEO, Marissa Mayer, said she's reviewing Yahoo's business strategy.

That's not usually a bad thing but it's making investors nervous.

That might be because the review could lead to changes in the restructuring plan the company has already started to implement. It could also throw a wrench into a previously announced plan to return the cash it generated from a deal MORE